Brighton date for Zoax

Brighton-based Sean Weir gets a home city date as his band Zoax take in Sticky Mikes, Brighton on Saturday, December 17.

This year has seen the release of the band’s debut album, cementing Sean’s place in the line-up of a band which has been described as a cross between Beyonce and System Of A Down.

“For the headline tour last year, the previous guitarist decided that he just didn’t want to carry on with the band,” Sean explains. “It was not his thing. It was not for him. He felt he didn’t really want to go in the direction of the band. It ended up on amicable terms.

“But the other guitarist Doug was someone I had known for years. I just happened to be with him in London and he called me about three weeks before the tour to ask if I could step in and fill in. I was a bit panicked. I had an hour’s worth of material to learn. I didn’t know any of the material previously. I had to learn it in three weeks.

“Doug sent me a few videos of certain parts, and every night when I came home from work, I would sit down with the headphones on and try to get them right. I didn’t want to try to do it my way because I was not officially part of the band. I was just filling in. I thought I had to learn the parts as they were. Maybe I might be able to add to them later, but when you get an opportunity like this, you don’t want to overstep. It was not my band, not my thing. I came in to help out.

“We played the headline tour. I thought the guys would be up for me joining the band, but there were a few things I had to get out the way first, and we had another tour in May of last year. I stepped in for that tour was well, and it was decided that I would become a member of the band, and so I had to get involved with the album-writing. It all happened very quickly, but it was a great experience. I was thrown in at the deep end. We had three months to write an album and record it. The album was released in May this year, the debut album for the band. We were all over the moon with it. When you are writing something, you could spend years and years on it, just trying to make it perfect, and you are constantly doing it. But we just went into it with a massively-open mind. We thought ‘Let’s not try writing something that will please everyone. Let’s try writing something that we want to write.’ And it worked. We felt that if we liked it, it would work, and if you like something, then you get much more of a flow and go a lot quicker.

“I would say that direction of the band has gone in a slightly-different direction (since he joined). When I came on board, we had a chat about what we were going to do, what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go. It just took a bit of time to find a writing style that was right for us.”

The band boasts members from Bath, Ireland and London, plus Sean based in Brighton: “But we say we are based in London.”

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